“I do hope you know where we are going, dear,” said Mother, anxiously.
“Of course I do,” answered Larry, impatiently. “The man’s instructions are burnt on my brain in letters of fire. Here, Gerry, turn right there, at that oak tree, and then second left.” We progressed some distance in silence, and then we reached a cross roads without benefit of a signpost. Before Larry could give instructions, Molly, of her own volition, had turned to the left.
“There you are,” said Larry in triumph, “the horse agrees with me. Even the dumb beasts of the field recognize a born leader. Anyway, her owner probably frequents this pub, so she knows the way.”
We plunged into a piece of damp and dripping woodland, where the wood pigeons clapped their wings at us and magpies clucked suspiciously. The road wound to and fro through the rain-soaked trees.
“Very soon now we’ll reach this wonderful old country pub,” said Larry, waxing poetical. “There’ll be a huge, wood fire to warm our outsides, and a huge hot whisky and lemon to warm our insides. The landlord, s humble peasant, will leap to do our bidding, and while we are roasting by the fire…”
Here, we rounded a corner and Larry’s voice died away. Fifty yards ahead of us, squatting in the mud, was the Rolls.
Molly may have had her failings, but she knew her way back to her master.
THE MAIDEN VOYAGE
However glib you are with words, your brain is inclined to falter if you try to describe the Piazza San Marco in Venice under a full daffodil-yellow summer moon. The buildings took as though they have been made out of crumbling over-sweet nougat in the most beautiful shades of browns and reds and subtle autumn pinks. You can sit and watch, fascinated, for the tiny tellers, Moorish figures, that come out and strike the big bell on St Mark’s cathedral at every quarter, so that it echoes and vibrates around the huge square.
On this particular evening, it was as ravishing as only Venice could be, spoiled only by the conglomeration of my belligerent family, clustered around two tables which were bestrewn with drinks and tiny plates of appetisers. Unfortunately, it had been my mother’s idea and, as had happened throughout her life, what she had produced as a treat had already, even at this early stage, started turning into a fiasco that was edging her slowly but relentlessly towards that pillory that all families keep for their parents.
“I wouldn’t mind if you had had the decency to tell me in advance. I could, at least have risked death travelling by air,” said my elder brother, Larry, looking despondently at one of the many glasses that an irritatingly happy waiter had put in front of him. “But what in heaven’s name possessed you to go and book us all on a Greek ship for three days? I mean, it’s as stupid as deliberately booking on the Titanic.”
“I thought it would be more cheerful, and the Greeks are such good sailors,” replied my mother, defensively. “Anyway, it’s her maiden voyage.”
“You always cry wolf before you’re hurt,” put in Margo. “I think it was a brilliant idea of Mother’s.”
“I must say, I agree with Larry,” said Leslie, with the obvious reluctance that we all shared in agreeing with our elder brother. “We all know what Greek ships are like.”
“Not all of them, dear,” said Mother. “Some of them must be all right.”
“Well, there’s damn all we can do about it now,” concluded Larry gloomily. “You’ve committed us to sail on this bloody craft, which I have no doubt would have been rejected by the Ancient Mariner in his cups.”
“Nonsense, Larry,” said Mother. “You always exaggerate. The man at Cook’s spoke very highly of it.”
“He said the bar was full of life,” cried Margo triumphantly.
“God almighty,” exclaimed Leslie.
“And to dampen our pagan spirits,” agreed Larry, “the most revolting selection of Greek wines, which all taste as though they have been forced from the reluctant jugular vein of some hermaphrodite camel.”
“Larry, don’t be so disgusting,” said Margo.
“Look,” protested Larry vehemently, “I have been dragged away from France on this ill-fated attempt to revisit the scenes of our youth, much against my better judgement. Already I am beginning to regret it, and we’ve only just got as far as Venice, for God’s sake. Already I’m curdling what remains of my liver with Lacrima Christi instead of good, honest Beaujolais . Already my senses have been assaulted in every restaurant by great mounds of spaghetti, like some sort of awful breeding ground for tapeworms, instead of Charolais steaks.”
“Larry, I do wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” said my mother. “There’s no need for vulgarity.”
In spite of the three bands, all playing different tunes at different corners of the great square, the vocalization of the Italians and tourists, and the sleepy crooning of the somnambulistic pigeons, it seemed that half of Venice was listening, entranced, to our private family row.
“It will be perfectly all right when we are on board,” said Margo. “After all, we will be among the Greeks.”
“I think that’s what Larry’s worried about,” commented Leslie gloomily.
“Well,” said Mother, trying to introduce an air of false confidence into the proceedings, “we should be going. Taking one of those vaporiser things down to the docks.”
We paid our bill, straggled down to the Canal and climbed on board one of the motor launches which my mother, with her masterly command of Italian, insisted on calling a vaporiser. The Italians, being less knowledgeable, called them vaporettos. Venice was a splendid sight as we chugged our way down the Canal, past the great houses, past the rippling reflections of the lights in the water. Even Larry had to admit that it was a slight improvement on the Blackpool illuminations. We were landed eventually at the docks which, like docks everywhere in the world, looked as though they had been designed (in an off moment) by Dante while planning his Inferno. We huddled in puddles of phosphorescent light that made us all look like something out of an early Hollywood horror film and completely destroyed the moonlight, which was by now silver as a spider’s web. Our gloom was not even lightened by the sight of Mother’s diminutive figure attempting to convince three rapacious Venetian porters that we did not need any help with our motley assortment of luggage. It was an argument conducted in basic English.
“We English. We no speak Italian,” she cried in tones of despair, adding a strange flood of words which consisted of Hindustani, Greek, French and German, none of which bore any relation to each other. This was my mother’s way of communication with any foreigner, be they Aborigine or Eskimo, but it failed to do more than momentarily lighten our gloom.
We stood and contemplated those bits of the Canal which led out into our section of the dock Suddenly there slid into view a ship which, even by the most land-lubberish standards, could never have been mistaken for seaworthy. At some time in her career, she had been used as a species of reasonably-sized inshore steamer but even in those days, when she had been virginal and freshly painted, she could not have been beautiful. Now, sadly lacking in any of the trappings that, in that ghastly phosphorescent light, might have made her turn into a proud ship, there was nothing. Fresh paint had not come her way for a number of years and there were large patches of rust, like unpleasant sores and scabs, all along her sides. Like a woman on excessively high-heeled shoes who had had the misfortune to lose one of the heels, she had a heavy list to starboard. Her totally unkempt air was bad enough, but the final indignity was exposed as she turned to come alongside the docks. It was an enormous tattered hole in her bows that would have admitted a pair of Rolls-Royces side by side. This terrible defloration was made worse by the fact that no first-aid of any description, even of the most primitive kind, had been attempted. The plates on her hull curved inwards where they had been crushed, like a gigantic chrysanthemum. Struck dumb, we watched her come alongside; there, above the huge hole in her bows, was her name: the Poseidon .